Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Even more about Spider-Man 3. Getting sick of it yet?Bryce Dallas Howard is out and about on the promo trail for The Lady in The Water. The first thing people are noticing is that she's a redhead again - the Spidey dye job washed away or, more likely, coloured over. I guess it would be an advantage for her to look as much like her appearance in the film she is plugging at the time, so I won't take it as confirmation that her days of Spider-Man 3 are over, maybe only that her hair is taking a bleach-assisted whipping for the good of the studio hype machine.I particularly liked one quote from her interview on Zap2It."I have to say I had the most unbelievable time doing 'Spider-Man 3' because everyone who's involved with that film has so much integrity and their hearts are in exactly the right place and they only want to tell a story that's the most entertaining, that's the most moral story and, ultimately, the most artistically compelling, because they have opportunity here to make a movie that they know people will show up to, so they're like, OK, we're not gonna sit back here and just sorta ride this. We're gonna really push ourselves."It was her noting how moral the story was that caught my eye. Of course "With great power comes great responsibility" is the heart of the Spider-Man ethos, and this third film really does play on that idea, but the idea that the Spider-Man stories are moral is all too often neglected. I was glad to hear it being raised.Spider-Man 2 - one of the finest films ever made, certainly one of the finest genre films ever made - was morally complex, but honest and direct and true.We'll next see Bryce in The Lady in The Water, of course, but UK readers should note Manderlay has just hit these shores on DVD, so go rent it or add it to your LoveFilm queue, though if you want to buy it, like I most certainly do, you'd be better off with the deluxe Danish edition.